


Settling In

by spuffyduds



Category: Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Blanket Permission, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2012-08-14
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer and fall with Duck have been great, but Dan's a little worried about the winter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Settling In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allheadybooks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allheadybooks/gifts).



> Many, many thanks to my fabulous beta Queue.

Dan’s not thrilled when winter starts closing in on Wilby.  He’s never been a fan of the dark and the dropping temperatures—Val used to tease him about his intolerance for cold, telling him he needed to put on a hundred pounds or so to have any insulation at all.

It wasn't just the weather, though--it was the way the weather trapped you in the house.  He and Val did really well as…roommates who both worked too much.  They could be pleasant and cheery to each other when they only saw each other for a few minutes a day--when they were out of the house all day most days, living their separate work lives. Then it was easy to not think too much about how infrequently anything happened in the bedroom besides exhausted sleep. Or, if anything did happen, easy not to think about how uninspired it was. They were busy, they were tired, they’d been married a while...that’s how it goes, right? 

But when they were holed up in the house during miserable weather…well, neither of them could claim to be exhausted then.  They’d watch stupid videos, they’d read for hours or doze on separate couches, but in the same room. And Dan always felt like Val was _waiting_ for something from him. And as the night wore on he’d look up from his book to find her looking at him, and he’d open his mouth to say “Let’s go to bed,” he _wanted_ to say that, he wanted to be somebody who would say that to her, he wanted to be who she wanted him to be.

But—she’d be looking at him and smiling, a little hopeful smile, and he’d close his mouth and look down at his book again and hate himself.

It’s stupid to even be worried about that, he knows it is. He and Duck have been _great_ together in bed, all summer and all fall, and, well, they’ve been great together really _often_. 

Dan even brought himself to talk about the greatness once, despite not wanting to jinx it.  They were tangled together after sex, snarled in the sheets, sweaty skin on sweaty skin,  Duck’s head was on Dan's chest. Dan nuzzled at his hair, still flecked with paint from work because Dan had jumped him the second he walked in the door.

“It’s weird you’re always up for it, hard as you work,” he said, and stroked his fingertips down Duck’s damp back.  “ I mean, I’m just standing around most of the day, the most physical thing I do is getting the videos out of the dropbox.  If I was doing your job I’d walk in the door and fall over.”

Duck laughed softly against his chest and then was quiet for a long while.  Dan had almost drifted off when Duck murmured, “It’s still—I’m still surprised to be getting what I want.  Might always be.”

Dan blinked up at the ceiling and couldn’t come up with any words at all, just got his arms back around Duck and held on tight.

So, yeah, it’s crazy to be worrying.  But still Dan does worry, gets his nerves all knotted up the first time the weather forecast looks like they’ll be socked in for the whole weekend. Duck’s a pretty fearless driver in that heavy truck, but even he’s not gonna try to get out when it’s sleeting.

Dan swings by the grocery store on the way home, gets bread and milk and eggs, that whole “French toast panic” that the islanders make fun of city folk for.  But before he left his own store he stocked up for his own personal panic—got a whole sack full of cowboy videos, a perfect excuse for falling asleep in front of the television.

Friday night’s normal—the storm hasn’t hit yet.  Dan cooks some spaghetti—Duck had done a lot more cooking than Dan had before they got together, having lived by himself (and not on an eating-out kind of  budget) but Dan’s trying to catch up, get decent at it, do his share. Spaghetti isn’t gourmet, but at least he’s graduated to adding a lot of veggies and spices to the bottled sauce.

And then, yeah, they have sex, and it’s sweaty and great and Dan falls asleep wondering what the hell he was freaking out about.  And then he wakes up at three a.m. to the sound of sleet and freaks out all over again.  Because they’ve had days off together, sure they have, but those were days when they _could_ have left the house, even if they didn’t.  Tomorrow, though, they’re going to be trapped in the house all day with nothing to do, just…looking at each other. And damn it, he’s so used to looks like that being from somebody who wants him to be...not what he is.  To be somebody else, to be what he’s pretending to be. 

And he knows he’s not pretending anymore, and he _knows_ \--well, is pretty sure—that he’s exactly what Duck wants, and he still can’t fucking go back to sleep.

At six a.m. he gives up, gets out of bed and makes coffee.  He’s sitting at the kitchen table drinking his cup when he hears Duck come into the room. He can’t quite bring himself to turn around.

Duck comes up behind him, kisses the top of his head, says, “Thanks for the coffee.”  Dan just stares at his own cup, listens to the noises of pouring and stirring behind him, and then Duck walks by him, sipping coffee, and heads for the other end of the house. 

There are banging noises and the occasional curse, and after a while Dan’s curiosity gets the better of him and he investigates.  Duck’s in the tiny extra bedroom, putting more weatherstripping around the windows.

It had somehow never occurred to Dan that when your job is “handyman/jack of all trades” there’s not really any such thing as a day when you can’t work due to weather.  There are just days when the only worksite you can commute to is your own house.

Duck finishes up with the windows, rehangs the slightly-off medicine-cabinet door in the bathroom, and then starts doing something to the toilet.  It’s been making weird groaning and almost-barking noises lately with every flush, and whatever he’s trying to do involves a lot of staring at it thoughtfully, sitting on the edge of the bathtub with a wrench in his hand.

Dan’s been enjoying watching him work, all focus and competence, but now that Duck seems to have hit a Deep Thought part of the process, Dan’s afraid staring at him would throw him off.

So he makes himself useful, putting together the bad-weather lunch his mom used to make:  Campbell’s tomato soup, and grilled-cheese sandwiches smushed in a waffle iron.

Duck walks into the kitchen sniffing happily, sits and bolts down his lunch.  “Thanks,” he says.  “I’ll make supper.”

“How’s the toilet coming along?”

“Well, I got it to change over from barking to howling.  Not sure that’s an improvement.”

“Try for purring.  Purring would be good.”

Duck grins at him and gives him a startlingly lascivious Catwoman mrrrrrow, and Dan cracks up.

Duck heads back to the bathroom, and Dan grabs a Zane Grey paperback—he doesn’t feel the need for a movie, somehow--and curls up on the couch.  (Although one of the advantages of moving in with a guy almost as tall as he is is that he doesn’t have to curl up very _much_.  It’s a long couch.)

He pulls a ratty afghan up over his feet, and he’s warm and full and the sleet outside doesn’t sound threatening anymore, and the banging and occasional toilet howl from the other end of the house are weirdly soothing, and it’s not long before he slides into sleep.

He startles awake to find Duck’s face inches from his; Duck’s kneeling in front of the couch.

 “Whuh?”  Dan says.

“I’m sorry,” Duck says.

“What?  Why?”

“I just—kinda dove into doing my own stuff, and I didn’t stop to think—I haven’t lived with anybody for a long time, you know?”  He sits back on his heels, smiles a little, but it’s a slightly worried-looking smile. “You bored?” he says. “Did you wanna do something?”

“Like what?”

Duck scratches at his head.  “I dunno, I think I got Monopoly somewhere?”

Dan laughs, and tries to come up with a way to explain that no, he wasn’t bored.  To explain how perfect it is to be in one room and be able to hear his...partner is the word, he guesses.  To be able to hear his partner being busy and content in another room entirely, not needing a thing from him.  But he can’t, there’s too much history to explain there, so he just says, “Pass on Monopoly.  But you could, uh.  You could fuck me.”

“Yeah,” Duck says, and leans down to kiss him.  Dan slides a hand up under Duck’s shirt—he loves Duck’s warm furred belly—and when the toilet lets out a long heartrending wolf howl Duck’s stomach jumps with laughter under his hand, and Dan smiles into the kiss.

 

\--end-- 

 


End file.
